Headteacher blog 28th November 2025

Farsley Lights parade is one of my favourite events of the school year. It gets better and better, especially now we have a growing array of willow creations bringing the procession to life. Building on last year’s success, we had a Children’s Books theme this time and some of our children contributed parts of The Very Hungry Caterpillar created during their willow craft club with Mrs Littlewood. We also had a float, courtesy of Farmac, and Mrs Scotter led Y6 and Reception children in some classic Christmas songs. Farsley as a community goes from strength to strength and this has been very evident over my 20+ years working in the village.

We received the latest Farsley birth data this week: another very low year. We have typically had 110-130 births in the area; this has fallen to 80 to 90-odd for the last three years – a drop that will be hitting schools soon. With 150 school places across the three schools for each year, this is clearly going to be a big problem. We always do recruit from further afield too, but this is a huge gap to bridge. A school that isn’t full or almost full is not financially sustainable.

Last week Y3 visited a synagogue, this week Y4 visited a mosque and next week Y1 are going to St John’s church. We try to visit lots of places of worship to enhance our RE curriculum and show respect for our multicultural community. These are always very positive, valuable visits. I am a little dismayed that a very small minority of families are choosing to withhold consent. Personally, I am not religious at all, but I do think that respect for, and knowledge of, a range of religions and beliefs is essential for community cohesion and positive relationships.